Adders on the Heath

'By the Oxford boy?'

'Well, there was that row in the station.'

'Yes, but there's only Carrie's word to go on, and you know what she is. What I say, you never can trust long-jumpers, not even young Mavis, or Deirdre Bath.'

'No, it don't seem fair they get so many attempts, considering we only get the one.'

'Besides, it depends on the take-off judge. Some of 'em lacks their eyesight and some of 'em's biased in favour.'

'Still, Carrie done nineteen six.'

'Yes, with the wind behind her and her new boy friend doing the measuring.'

They jogged on.

'That row in the station,' said Syl, at the end of another lap. 'Think it was a put-up job?'

'Of course it was. That Oxford boy wouldn't have made a pass in a nudist camp.'

'Oh, but men don't, dear. One of the rules.'

'Well, you know what I mean. That Oxford boy, let Carrie say what she likes, he was framed. That idea's just come to me. He was framed!'

'As how and for what?'

'Everybody thinks these Oxford students got money. Course they haven't, poor little B's.'

'But he wasn't still a student. He'd left.'

'It's the same thing, dear. Without an uncle, or something, they leaves to be schoolmasters or something, and there's no money in schoolmastering. What about a couple of starts to the first bend? You start me and I'll start you. Don't suppose Dad will worry about anything but the sprinters. Not that he's a bad sort, mind you. He just don't agree with we girls doing the mile.'

'If I could win at anything else, he'd be dead right at that,' said Syl. They held the sprinters up while they practised starting and then trotted off to the dressing-rooms.

'I still don't get it how we got this ground and the showers and things,' said Judy. 'I thought the club was always on the rocks.'

'It's some Trust or other, dear.'

'Oh, I see. Fishy, these Trusts, I always think. Somebody trying to dodge the Income Tax, that's all there is to it.'

'I suppose,' said Syl, 'there couldn't be anything like that behind it?'

'Behind what?-Damn this shower! It won't turn off! Ah, that's it!-How d'you mean?'

'Well, Bert and Bob finding out something fishy and being bumped off before they could use what they knowed, so as to try and bleed this boy.'

'Oh, don't be romantic!'

'Still, they might have done.'

'What, enough to get themselves done in?'

'Well, you never know. Mum said you can come to supper, if you like. It's rissoles and chips.'

'Ta, then, I will. I'm supposed to be meeting Ted at nine o'clock, though. Think your mum will mind if I push off then?'

'Course not. One thing I'll say for mum, she does understand the problems of we girls. She says herself that, these days, if you ain't married by nineteen, you've had it.'

The supper at Syl's house was dominated by her mother, in the tradition that young women ballet dancers, swimmers, ice-skaters and other athletes are all dominated, protected, and have life made hell for them, by the female parent. To Syl's plea that potato chips automatically put her out of training, her mother replied that a bit of building up did not hurt nobody and that the family could soon sweat that off by running to work instead of going by bus. The girls enjoyed the rissoles and chips, and nobody mentioned blackmail.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE GEN, THE DOPE, THE LOW-DOWN

'By these Questions something seems to have ruffled you. Are any of us suspected?'

John Gay-The Beggar's Opera

The available information regarding the two deaths was too meagre to interest the London papers overmuch. Most of them carried a few lines headed Mysterious Deaths In New Forest, but the adjourned inquest, the adamant attitude of the manager of the New Forest Hunt Hotel and the uncompromising stand taken by the Superintendent of Police made further enquiries difficult. The London papers were prepared to wait for the inquest to be resumed before they spent any more money on reporters' expenses.

The local press was more persistent, but came up against the same blank walls. One enterprising youth did attempt to waylay Richardson and Denis, but got no change out of either. Richardson offered to punch him on the nose and Denis referred obliquely to a charge of molestation of witnesses.

Dame Beatrice and Laura pursued a course of action dictated by the former and warmly endorsed by the latter. This was to visit the secretary of the Scylla and District Social and Athletic Club to find out whether he had any contribution to make to the limited information they already possessed regarding the two dead men.

'I bet he won't be over-pleased to see us,' volunteered Laura. The police will have turned him inside-out already, not to mention the local papers.'

'I am not so sure,' said Dame Beatrice. 'An obscure group such as this athletics club may not be at all averse to as much publicity as it can obtain. One thing which I shall do before we dabble in the affair, however, is to acquaint the Chief Constable of our proposed activities. He is an old and valued friend and I should not like him to think that...'

'We were going behind his back? He wouldn't think that of you, I'm certain, but we might as well have his blessing.'

This was readily obtained, especially as Dame Beatrice reminded him that her grand-nephew was, to some extent, mixed up in the affair. He introduced her to the Superintendent and she agreed, as was her invariable practice, to keep the police fully informed of any progress she might make in the unmasking of the guilty persons.

'Because, of course, there's almost certain to be more than one of them,' said the Superintendent, 'and that's why, although we're checking up very carefully on this young Mr Richardson, ma'am, we're not particularly inclined at present to think he had much to do with it. Nobody seems to have been associated with him until Mr Bradley came down here, and by that time the murders belonged, as they say, to history. Of course,' he added, giving her a shrewd glance, 'we've already got in touch with London to check on Mr Bradley's movements just before he left there, but that's just routine.'

Richardson had the address in Southampton of the secretary of the Scylla and District, and an interview, fixed for seven o'clock in the evening, was soon arranged. Dame Beatrice's opinion was justified, for the secretary, a long, thin, dark-haired young man in glasses, greeted them with nervous enthusiasm, invited them in and began an excited monologue.

'Of course, we've seen quite a lot of the police and we've had the reporters. All the members of the club, men and girls, have been questioned, but I don't think anyone believes it's got anything to do with the club as such,' he said. 'Mind you, it's a bit odd that they both belonged to our mob, although, of course, Bunt gave us up months ago because of disagreements over one thing and another.'

'Can you tell us the origin of those disagreements?' asked Dame Beatrice.

'Our late president, one of the wealthiest men in the county, started us off with our own ground and a small stand, you know, but he resigned about a year ago, so we touted round for somebody else with money who'd be prepared to support us. Well, there didn't seem to be any outside takers, so Bunt proposed we should ballot among the members themselves. Anybody who was prepared to cough up a hundred quid could join the list of candidates. He himself, he said, was ready and willing. His father's a builder and doing well.'

'But I take it that Mr Bunt was not elected.'

'No, he wasn't. Nobody really wanted him. He was our best cross-country runner and a useful steeplechaser-had been tried for the County and all that-but he had it up the nose and was always chucking his weight about. Then one of the ladies-he pulled in a pretty good pay packet I should think, although we never found out what he did-anyhow, he was always treating the girls-found out that his first action as president would be to try and affiliate us to a big Southampton club. Affiliation sounds all right, but some of us knew that it meant, in this case, a complete merger in which we'd lose our identity once and for all. A lot of us didn't want that, especially as we've got our own ground and running-track.'